Effects of induced motor fatigue on walking mechanics and energetics.

Lower-body robotic exoskeletons can be used to reduce the energy demand of locomotion and increase the endurance of wearers. Understanding how motor fatigue affects walking performance may lead to better exoskeleton designs to support the changing physical capacity of an individual due to motor fatigue. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of motor fatigue on walking mechanics and energetics.

Defining Allowable Stimulus Ranges for Position and Force Controlled Cutaneous Cues.

Haptic cues delivered via wearable devices have great potential to enhance a user's experience by transmitting task information and touch sensations in domains such as virtual reality, teleoperation, and prosthetics. Much is still unknown on how haptic perception, and consequently optimal haptic cue design, varies between individuals. In this work we present three contributions.

Improving short-term retention after robotic training by leveraging fixed-gain controllers.

Introduction: When developing control strategies for robotic rehabilitation, it is important that end-users who train with those strategies retain what they learn. Within the current state-of-the-art, however, it remains unclear what types of robotic controllers are best suited for promoting retention. In this work, we experimentally compare short-term retention in able-bodied end-users after training with two common types of robotic control strategies: fixed- and variable-gain controllers.

Skin Stretch Haptic Feedback to Convey Closure Information in Anthropomorphic, Under-Actuated Upper Limb Soft Prostheses.

Restoring hand function in individuals with upper limb loss is a challenging task, made difficult by the complexity of human hands from both a functional and sensory point of view. Users of commercial prostheses, even sophisticated devices, must visually attend to the hand to know its state, since in most cases they are not provided with any direct sensory information. Among the different types of haptic feedback that can be delivered, particularly information on hand opening is likely to reduce the requirement of constant visual attention.